Sustainability

Key Issues

Helen Kopnina, Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet, Helen Kopnina, Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781136270802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Economics

Sustainability: Key Issues is a comprehensive introductory textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate students doing courses in sustainability. Highly original, it covers the very broad spectrum of ideas covered under sustainability, from participation, resilience, growth, ecological modernism through to culture, sustainable communities and sustainable consumption. Each chapter covers one key idea, and has been written by an expert in that field. This book makes key issues approachable, with each chapter containing:

• a definition of the key concept
• a history of how and why the issue has emerged
• a discussion of the advantages, drawbacks, main contributions and controversies associated with this issue
• case studies to demonstrate how it works in reality
• critical discussion of mainstream models of sustainability and the reason why they don't work
• introduction of beyond-the-convention alternatives, including circular economy and cradle to cradle approaches

This is the ideal book for students and anyone interested in understanding the key issues within sustainability and how they interact.

Part I Defining sustainability

Introduction The emergence and development of sustainability

Helen Kopnina and Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet

What is sustainability?

There are many different uses of the term sustainability as well as its derivatives, such as social sustainability, environmental sustainability, sustainable development, sustainable living, sustainable future, and many others. Literally, the word sustainability means the capacity to support, maintain or endure; it can indicate both a goal and a process. In ecology, sustainability describes how biological systems remain diverse, robust, resilient and productive over time, a necessary precondition for the well-being of humans and other species. As the environment and social equality became increasingly important as a world issue, sustainability was adopted as a common political goal.

The concept of sustainability the way most of us use it today emerged in the 1960s in response to concern about environmental degradation. This degradation was seen by some to result from the consequences of industrial development, increase in consumption and population growth and by others as poor resource management or the result of underdevelopment and poverty. Sustainability was linked to ethical concerns, typically involving a commitment to justice between generations involving issues such as equal distribution of wealth, working conditions and human rights, and possibly between humans and nonhumans, as discussed in chapters of Robert Garner, Holmes Rolston III and Haydn Washington.

We can distinguish between different types of sustainability, for example between social (in terms of promoting equality, health, human rights), economic (in terms of sustaining people’s welfare, equitable division of resources) and environmental (in terms of sustaining nature or natural resources for humans and for nonhuman species) sustainability, as well as combinations of them. The study of sustainability involves multidisciplinary approaches, anthropology, political ecology, philosophy and ethics and environmental science. This type of multidisciplinary combination enables us to explore this new form of institutionalized sustainability science in a neoliberal age of environmental knowledge production and sustainability practice.

Finally, we can ask: ‘Why be sustainable?’ There is something quite strange about asking why anyone should be sustainable. To ask for an explanation about something implies that there is something else more convincing, more obviously fundamental than that for which we seek an explanation. For example, ‘Why follow this course on sustainability?’ can be adequately explained by ‘Because it constitutes part of my Master degree’, and ‘Why study for a Master degree’ can be explained by ‘Because it will allow me to get a good job’, and ‘Why do you need a good job?’ can be explained by ‘To be happy’. But if we continue to ask why, there comes a point when all the answers are exhausted, as parents of young children would tell you, and the only rejoinder remains: ‘Just because’. If the interviewer cannot see why happiness is desirable, then there is nothing much to be said – we have reached the ultimate explanation. In the end, we should be sustainable for two reasons, first because civilization as we know it might be seriously undermined if we are not, with ecological integrity all but destroyed, and second because it provides the hope of living in harmony into the future with the beautiful world of which we are a part.

In his Critique of Pure Reason ([1781] 2000), German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) developed the philosophy of humanism, distinguishing between a Categorical Imperative (‘I just have to do it’) as a moral law and Hypothetical Imperatives, which are merely local moral maxims (‘If I want X, then I must do Y’). Asking ‘why be sustainable?’ can lead us to both categorical and hypothetical imperatives. Granting some modification of Kant’s humanism, ‘sustainability’ could conceivably act as a categorical imperative. We might try to explain this by suggesting that being sustainable is good for the people and the planet, or we may have our ulterior motives for being sustainable. As future managers of commercial companies, for example, we may believe that sustainability is good for business (for example, as lower electricity bills save money for the company, or because proclaimed sustainability practices gives the public a sense of security that managers are responsible in fulfilling their obligations), but ulterior motives are not the same as good reasons. If we only abstain from unsustainable practices because we fear punishment by law, we cannot pride ourselves in our sustainability, as we are suggesting that we would not act in such a way if these incentives were not there. Thus, sustainability might be regarded as a Hypothetical Imperative, subject to various interpretations, but such imperatives can guarantee nothing in relation to the orderly or democratic world, or in relation to concerted international effort.

This book aims to introduce you to the manifold features of sustainability. Contributing chapters present various and disputed features, uses and manifestations of sustainability, as well as address its continuous reshaping. They cover the very broad spectrum of ideas covered under sustainability, from participation, resilience, growth and ecological modernism through to ecological justice, culture, sustainable communities and sustainable consumption. These issues are particularly important given that sustainability is such a broad issue, where many different areas of expertise and forms of knowledge interact. While the majority of books on sustainability have a narrow focus, for example, business management aspects of sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR), this volume takes a much broader approach. Contributing chapters capture the concept of sustainability not just as a coherent theory or blueprint of practice, but as a multifaceted and complex matter with different possibilities.

In some cases, sustainability can be seen as both a fundamental issue (as some people see that we cannot do without it) and as strongly affective (as some people strongly care about sustainability). The ultimate answer as to why be sustainable thus depends on whether we view the issue as practical, profitable or fundamental. Sustainability, at any rate, is not something we can get easily around. The big question is how to be sustainable?

How to be sustainable?

The lived experience of sustainability – including your own, since you are reading this book – involves everyday confrontations with what might be termed ‘unsustainability’. Whether you are a Western shopper trying to pick the right ‘green’, ‘ecological’, or ‘fair-trade’ product from the shelf, or a poor farmer in a remote region of a developing country trying to save his or her harvest from encroaching drought, or an endangered animal trying to find a new place of habitation after its home has been destroyed by loggers, your experience with sustainability is going to be very different.

Sustainability is not easy to achieve, as it sometimes requires information and knowledge that individuals, societies, governments or corporate stake-holders either do not possess, only partially possess, do not want to accept or act upon (i.e. operate in denial of), and/or cannot afford. An example of this is climate change, caused by anthropogenic global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides.

Climate science is highly complex and dependent upon combined insights from science and technology studies, innovation systems theory as well as research of meteorologists, biologists, geologists and many other specialists. Fundamental changes are needed to reform current systems of production and consumption, as well as changes affecting the actors, networks and institutions involved in the governance of these changes. Because the outcomes of any type of scientific research are not necessarily straightforward, policymakers and the public often want to have simple answers and accurate future predictions upon which they can act. We might want to know: by how many percent will the Arctic glacier melt per year? Per month? What effect will it have on us? Yet, such clear predictions are often impossible due to the very complex and myriad factors effecting climatic conditions. This complexity leads to scientific uncertainty that climate change deniers – and particularly political groups or corporate lobbies that have a stake in refusing regulation of emissions – are all too glad to exploit.

Sometimes sustainable choices require decisions that politicians, corporate leaders and citizens are not willing to make. Many democratic governments at present are not willing to make unpopular decisions, such as demanding higher taxes on certain products. Political decisions that might result in socially and environmentally benign reforms may be costly to citizens who may be required to pay higher taxes, or asked to make lifestyle changes that they are not ready to commit to. Unfortunately, the biggest hurdle in the implementation of sustainable practices and policies are too often politicians themselves who are worried about estranging voters and lobbyists.

Sometimes the sustainable choices are simply not available – for example, if governments do not provide public transportation, citizens may be forced to use cars. On the other hand, if citizens themselves are choosing to use cars, that behavior can undermine a government’s support for public transport, such as running a bus in the province where the use of public transport is minimal. Thus, low carbon consumption by households, communities and businesses at local and regional levels, and transition pathways to low carbon energy at the national level are all possible – but dependent upon the availability and willingness of responsible stakeholders to initiate and maintain change. The corporate and political stakeholders are particularly important in this regard as billions are annually spent by the advertising industry promoting profligate consumption, supported by the power of large corporations and the dominance of neoliberal governments.

In some cases, sustainability can be a simple lifestyle choice. But how simple is it really?

Consider an example of a good citizen that thinks that the act of brushing his teeth in the shower is going to save water as he is doing two things simultaneously. This may or may not be the case, however, as he might be spending more time brushing his teeth while the water is running then he would at the sink, as well as actually washing, thus actually using more water.

Consider another conundrum. How can a consumer decide which form of energy is ‘truly green’, if this consumer is bombarded by contradictory and sometimes government- or corporate-sponsored information? Does biofuel or biodiesel qualify as ‘green’, as the European Union’s Environmental Agency states? Considering that some of biofuel may be derived from tree plantations that were planted in places where the old biodiverse forest, which took tens of years to grow to maturity, once stood, how sustainable is this form of green energy?

Another example is even more difficult as it has to do with morals and ethics. Most of us, editors and contributors of this volume, as well as probably yourself, the reader, may agree that helping the sick and the poor is the moral responsibility of the privileged classes or societies. Bu...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Frontmatter
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• List of abbreviations
• Contributors
• PART I Defining sustainability
• PART II Measuring and assessing sustainability
• PART III Governing, business and managing sustainability
• PART IV Globalization, growth and environmental change
• PART V Sustainability and ethics
• Glossary
• Index